Spent a lot of the day laughing at the posturing over the latest Wikileaks release.  No surprises in the substance or tone State’s diplomatic traffic.  Nothing unexpected in how the United States conducts its foreign policy or manages its embassies either.  Jaw-dropping shock and awe (in a ROTFLMAO sort of way) though that the procedural security for handling of classified information has devolved in the 14 years since I left the government to the point that government spokesmen can plausibly claim a 23 -year-old Army PFC not only had access to so many documents that he had so little need to know, but that the technological safeguards in place did nothing to prevent him from downloading and e-mailing hundreds of thousands of documents to whoever he wanted, even while sitting in the middle of Iraq.

I know individual accountability has all but vanished in federal service, and in the nine years I worked with Diplomatic Security I was only aware of one Agency (certainly not mine) that held supervisors accountable for the security lapses of the sections and staff, but I’m really having trouble reconciling the concept that the federal government can properly handle information in the modern age with what PFC Manning is alleged to have been able to do single-handedly.

Very glad though that the First Amendment still has enough life left in it that the voters are able to see the sad state of the government’s information security efforts, not that it matters.  The problems are deep enough and systemic enough that I can’t see any politician having the courage to make the information colander in Washington an issue.

Banned Books Week is back, running from today through October 2.   Going back through the archives, I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t made more progress on the list as it stood in 2004.  Fortunately for me, if not for society, this year’s list has drifted more toward my tastes, and I was pleasantly surprised at the inclusion of modern works such as Stephen King’s Survivor Type on one of the lists.  I score much more deviant on this list of 100 banned classics, having read 20 out of the 100, with another two ready to contaminate my mind on the Nook.

While I support Banned Books Week for the attention it brings to the issue, I don’t care how much of a rebel it will make me feel like: I have no interest in reading the Twilight series.

Just doing a little shout-out for the First Amendment and the federal judiciary here today.  Many of the amendments *coughFourthcough* *coughFifthcough* have been battered in recent years, but the First still comes through strong.  Yes, being able to say whether you’re gay (or not) is speech.  Yes, being able to write or draw something on your skin is speech.  Maybe I’m just amazed that either of these issues needed to be litigated at all.

Holding the Vice Presidential debate during Banned Book Week is simply priceless. The timing opens up so many possibilities for the candidates to distinguish themselves on their attitudes toward literary freedom, the role of libraries in a modern society and their respective reading tastes and levels.

There’s a list of some Southern California events at the L.A. Times.

Giggling at small-town cops having to deal with pictures of nearly nekkid flesh this afternoon.  OMG its obscene!  The store manager didn’t follow our blatently unconstitutional demand to remove the material.  It’s an Abercrombie and Fitch store in a mall – what do you expect?  I take it they don’t have Victoria’s Secret down there. 

[The police spokesman] confirmed that one [of the photos] depicts three shirtless young men from the back, walking through a field. The man in the lead appears to be about to pull up his jeans, which have slipped down enough to reveal his upper buttocks.
The same image is displayed on the Abercrombie Web site.
The other image is of a woman who is topless and whose “breast is displayed with her hand covering just the nipple portion,” Bernstein said. “You could still pretty much see the rest of the breast.”

The full article at the Virginian-Pilot’s site includes the allegedly obscene photo [quite safe for work].  I wonder what they’re going to do now that the local newspaper has posted one of the seized photographs online.  Stop the intertubes.  No more nekkididity in ‘merika. 

This list of the 100 most banned books was over on a post over at Sardonic Bomb this afternoon. I’ll have to admit I’m curious why some of them are there. Regardless, I’m probably more ashamed that I’ve only read twelve of the hundred, and only two of the fifty most banned than I am for actually having read any of the works listed. Looks like I’ve got my summer beach reading cut out for me.

Read on if you want to see what’s been corrupting my mind over the years. Those I’ve read are in bold, and although I’ve seen film versions of a number of the others, I’m not going to give myself the credit until I’ve been subjected to the original author’s unadulterated bad influences.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy�s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It�s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth�s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L�Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid�s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What�s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What�s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It�s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women�s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where�s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

“[There is] no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures.”

That piece of #$% jurisprudence is from a federal judge’s ruling last month that video games aren’t entitled to First Amendment protection, as reported at Salon.com [via Ernie the Attorney] and CNN.com. Fortunately, this idea is already in conflict with a previous ruling from the Seventh Circuit and thus, hopefully, dead on arrival.

I suppose the question I should be asking is why people get so hung up on the medium rather than the contents of the message? The case at hand involved graphically violent video games. I prefer a game called Civilization: Call to Power (and I loved its predecessor, Civilization, on my old Amiga, and later on the Mac). The goal of the game is to lead your civilization to global domination. Among other strategic actions, players must weigh the benefits of internal vs. international trade; weigh industrialization vs. environmental damage; budget for the competing concerns of scientific research and military hardware; and evaluate which government structure is best for their goals (despotism, fascism, democracy, communism, etc, all have strengths AND weaknesses to be evaluated and reevaluated as situtations change). If people got together face-to-face and discussed these issues, even in the context (or pretext) of a game, the conversations would have to be entitled to the highest level of First Amendment protection. Why should the standard be any different because the medium is new?